


Rusted from the elbow to the finger

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:04:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, many years ago, Curufin made Maedhros a mechanical hand to wear. Neither of the two remaining sons of Fëanor want to see it fall apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rusted from the elbow to the finger

“Brother.”

Maedhros looked up from his work for only a moment to acknowledge Maglor as he slipped inside the room without a word and drew up a chair, sitting down at the opposite side of the table.

For a long while Maedhros carried on working with the tiny screwdriver, reassembling the delicate mechanism of the mechanical hand before him with surprising deftness even as he held it in place against the table with the stump of his right wrist.

Maglor simply watched in silence, drumming his fingers against the table unconsciously as Maedhros replaced the ornate casing, fitting the last piece on with a sigh. “I fixed it… I think. But the mechanism is so worn that I don’t think it will last much longer.”

Maglor blinked. “Oh” he said limply, looking at the metal hand, which Maedhros was now strapping back onto the stump of his wrist. Maglor’s stomach twisted, thinking of the day when Curufin had presented the metal hand to Maedhros, had showed him how it worked, helped him strap it on for the first time.  _The hand was the last of their little brother that they had left, it could not fall to pieces with the years like everything else, it could not, it must not…_

“It’s somewhat impressive that it has lasted this long” Maedhros was saying, his voice brittle and too loud, filled with an artificiality that was almost reckless. He looked at Maglor. “I do not strictly  _need_  it, but I suppose it frightens the children less when I wear it.”

“Let me help you” said Maglor, hearing desperation in his own voice. “Maybe I could take a look at it, maybe we could commission someone else to make new parts or - ”

“No.” Maedhros was looking at him now, sorrow and pain in his eyes. He shook his head a little. “No, I appreciate the thought, but I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Nelyo…” Maedhros looked away at the sound of the name, but Maglor persisted. “You think something is going to happen, don’t you? You think something’s coming…”

“How are the twins?”

“In bed for hours, sleeping peacefully. I would have gone to bed myself, but I saw your light and came to check on you. And stop trying to change the subject.”

Maedhros glared at him. “You know it too.” His voice was hard now, cracking like a whip. “Our lives cannot go on like this _._  The Oath will catch up with us in time. We’ve cheated it for all these years, but how much longer can we - ”

“Stop.”

“No. You know it as well as I do… you’ve known for a long time. You knew it when you took the children, I believe, but I did not speak of it then. I let you play your selfish little game, playing at redemption” his voice was growing bitter, suddenly spiteful, mocking. “You can lie to them, brother, and you can even lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.” Maedhros shrugged, his shoulders slumping, and dragged his hand through his hair. “Not that there’s anything to be done about it.”

Maglor felt the words cut at him, all the sharper for the truth he saw there. _He had never been like this before Findekáno died_ , thought Maglor viciously to himself.  _Not spiteful, even in pain, in anger._ And the deaths of each of their brothers in turn had broken Maedhros a little more, even as the necessity to kill turned him to ice and iron. And yet, Maedhros always survived. That was simply what he  _did_ ; Maglor had to cling to that, at least, as he always had. Maglor made an effort to still the shaking in his voice. “Nelyo… why are you saying all this now?”

Maedhros looked up from the table and met his gaze once more, the sudden flash of rage entirely gone from his eyes, replaced by exhaustion and pain. Maedhros’ hand, Maglor noticed, was still balled into a fist, knuckles white.

“Oh Macalaurë.” Maedhros let out a long, trembling breath and his fist unclenched, and then he was taking Maglor’s hand tentatively in his own across the table. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know, I…” for a brief moment he looked as if he was biting back tears, before his face smoothed again, turning back into impassive granite. In the glow of the candle on the table (for neither of them used lampstones as often as they once had, these days) the twisting network of silvery scars laced across Maedhros’ face was picked out in stark light and shade, ridges and furrows that seemed to dance and change as the candle guttered.

Maglor squeezed his brother’s hand, taking as much reassurance as he hoped to give. He frowned. “ _‘Playing at redemption’_? Did… did you really mean that?”

Maedhros’ voice was heavy and tired. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to hurt you, brother.”

“I know you didn’t.”  _And yet it had hurt_ , said a small voice inside Maglor’s head.  _It hurt because it was true. You knew all along that you were clawing at your last chance for a new start, that it was not enough to wash away the blood on your hands, and would never be anywhere near enough. A drop of kindness against a whole churning ocean of blood. That you are deluding yourself. That the twins would be better off if –_

Luckily Maedhros spoke before Maglor’s thoughts could go any further. “It’s late. You should go to bed now.”

 _Always the elder brother._  “So should you.”

Maedhros was silent.

“I know how little you sleep” said Maglor quietly. “I’ve seen - ”

“Stop it.”

Maglor felt a flash of impatience, even now. “What, so you’re going to sit around like a grim ghost of yourself the entire time until the Oath awakens once more and we are dragged down into the darkness?” The words tasted like poison in his mouth, and he knew he would regret them later. He regretted them even as he said them, but they still kept coming, suddenly pouring from his mouth in a flood. He laughed bitterly. “Because Valar forbid we could be  _better_  than that one day, so we probably shouldn’t even try. Is that your reasoning? You would turn your life –  _our_  lives – into nothing but the waiting between one slaughter and the next?”

Maedhros’ eyes flamed, but something behind them looked wounded, suffering.  _Good_ , though part of Maglor savagely.  _Anything to break his stone-faced coldness_. He felt trapped, wanting to hold his one remaining brother in his arms and not let him go, but also wanting to shake him, to make him  _see_. To make Maedhros understand the desperation that was suddenly coursing through his heart once more.

“Macalaurë” said Maedhros evenly, his voice as hard and unyielding as his face. “Do you honestly think that our fates will be any different to our brothers’? Do you think we will be judged any differently by the Valar, by the One himself, because you took in and raised a couple of children after we’d driven their mother off a  _cliff_?” His eyes were hollow. “You’re grasping at scraps, Káno. You’re lying to yourself.”

“So… what do you want? That we turn them out because our own redemption is out of the question? Because they’re not an efficient means to an end?” Maglor’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ”Forgive me if I thought that maybe  _compassion_  might come into my own motivations somewhere. I suppose you think you know me better than I do.”

“ _Don’t_  talk to me about compassion” snarled Maedhros. “You can be the most compassionate person in the world, but the fact remains that you still swore the Oath, as I did. And we will both have to answer its call, when the time comes again. It’s not a matter of choice.”

“You think we will have to kill again” said Maglor, in a small voice.

Maedhros shrugged helplessly. “Maybe. Maybe not. I cannot see the future, but I gave up daring to hope for the best a long time ago.”

Maglor thought he knew when that had happened, but he kept silent. He kept his eyes fixed on the mechanical hand, watching the candlelight play on the elegant engraving on the lobstered steel fingers.

“I wish I had been a better craftsman” he said at last. “So that at least I could fix this for you.” He nodded at the metal hand.

Maedhros sighed deeply, his mouth twitching a little at the corner. “It was Curvo’s work. You wouldn’t have a chance.”

Maglor felt himself smile just a little, despite the familiar tug like a metal hook in his chest, the pain that was his younger brothers’ absence. The years had not soothed that particular hurt.

“You’re probably right” he said at last, sighing and stretching. His arms felt stiff. “But please, Nelyo, won’t you stop this? Get some sleep, if you can.”

Maedhros pursed his lips, regarding Maglor thoughtfully. Then he sighed and stood up, walking to the other side of the table and stiffly and unexpectedly enfolding Maglor in his arms. Tentatively, Maglor wrapped his own arms about Maedhros, pressing his face into his brother’s shoulder as he had not done for so long, suddenly feeling tears on his face, soaking into the thick wool of Maedhros’ tunic. “What is to become of us?” He heard himself whisper, feeling the cold touch of Maedhros’ metal hand at the nape of his neck.

“I don’t know” said Maedhros, and “I don’t know, I don’t know.” The words sounded almost like a prayer.

 _I think we both know_ , thought Maglor.  _Let us hope that we are wrong._

Letting go of Maglor at last, Maedhros went to the table and blew the candle out, leaving the wisp of smoke to curl up to the ceiling in the moonlight coming in through the window.


End file.
